As your business starts to grow and the workload increases, you will be faced with a choice. You either start hiring more staff or you outsource some areas of the business. There are certain business functions that require a lot of expertise and hiring staff to fulfill those roles can be expensive and in those cases, outsourcing is a more cost-effective solution. However, when you outsource, you relinquish some control and that isn’t always ideal in some areas of the business. It’s important that you find a balance and know which areas to outsource and which areas to keep in-house. These are the best areas of your small business to outsource.
Legal Services
Legal services are one of the first things that businesses outsource because in-house lawyers are incredibly expensive. It’s important that you have the right legal advice when running a business because if you end up in legal trouble, it can be very costly. But there are only certain times when you will need the advice of a lawyer, especially if you are a small business. Big companies that are doing business over international borders or negotiating big contracts all the time will benefit from having an in-house lawyer but if you’re a small business that only requires legal advice from time to time, it’s usually best to outsource.
Accounting Services
Handling payroll correctly is so important because if you don’t pay employees properly, you could end up in some legal trouble and your staff are not going to be very happy either. As soon as you start experiencing problems with payment, productivity is going to take a big hit. Payroll can also get quite complicated if you are offering benefits like health care to your employees so it’s often best to leave it to the professionals. When you are first starting out, you might be able to get by on your own if you have the right accounting software, but as you start to grow, it’s best to outsource your payroll.
Taxes are another tricky financial issue that you should probably outsource. If you make mistakes with your taxes, you will be penalized and you’re likely to get a big fine. In some cases, you could even find yourself in legal trouble, even if it was a genuine mistake. You can’t take any chances with your taxes so it’s best to outsource to somebody that knows what they’re doing.
You will be able to find an accounting service that can handle all of these financial issues for you and give you good advice on handling your business accounts as well.
IT Services
Technology is such an important part of any business these days. When implemented correctly, it can help you to improve efficiency and save yourself a lot of money. The problem is, a lot of business owners don’t really know where to start with technology and it’s easy to make mistakes. There are a lot of different options out there when it comes to business software and you may end up paying over the odds for features that you don’t really need. But if you outsource IT services, they will be able to assess your business and give you advice on which software is best for your company. The right IT services will also be able to help you maintain all of your software which is very important.
Any IT issues can cost you a lot of money because your employees cannot work effectively and productivity will drop. If you have long periods of downtime, it can seriously impact your business. That’s why you need IT services to fix any issues quickly as soon as they come up. They will also handle your cyber-security for you which is absolutely vital. All businesses are at risk of cyber-attacks these days and data loss can be incredibly damaging to your business so it’s best to leave your security to the professionals.
Administrative Tasks
There are a lot of basic admin tasks that take up your time and the time of your employees. When you spend so much time dealing with menial admin tasks like answering emails or basic phone inquiries, you have less time to work on big projects and push your business forward. In the past, it was just something that you had to deal with, but that’s not the case anymore. The rise of freelance and remote work means that you can use a virtual assistant to handle a lot of that admin for you. You don’t need to worry about hiring somebody full time and finding the office space for them, so it’s very cost-effective. You can hire a virtual assistant for a few hours a day and free up a lot of time.
Marketing
Outsourcing your marketing is a divisive issue and some businesses don’t like to do it. When it comes to your brand, you need to make sure that your business is being represented in the right way, and some people worry that a third party will not realize their vision effectively. However, there are some situations where outsourcing your marketing might be the best option. It’s easy to find the time to market your business in the early days but if your marketing campaigns are successful and you see a big increase in sales, you might struggle with the increased workload. Marketing often falls by the wayside in this situation and businesses lose their initial momentum. It’s important that you continue with your marketing campaigns as the business is growing so you can continue that growth. If you don’t have the finances to hire a well-staffed marketing team, it may be better to outsource.
You could also consider outsourcing certain areas of your marketing and keeping others in-house. For example, you might decide to outsource your social media marketing to a third party company and handle the rest of it yourself. The most important thing is that you find a marketing company that understands your business brand well and shares your vision.
Outsourcing these areas of your business could help you to save a lot of money and improve productivity.
